The
number of men booking onto stress management courses is on the increase and
could overtake women.
Reed
Training, part of Reed the recruitment and training group, said that in the
year to June 2003, the gender gap between women and men attending the company’s
stress management courses has reduced significantly from 22 per cent down to
just 4 per cent.
Overall,
Reed Training has also seen its bookings for stress management and emotional
intelligence courses increase by 30 per cent in the year to June 2003.
Reed
Training’s stress management specialist, Mike George, said: "Men are
starting to attend our courses in significant numbers and the gender shift is
very noticeable.
"It’s
a positive sign that men are finally acknowledging the pressure they’re under
and seeking ways to address it.
"This
is happening not just because the pressures of work and family life are getting
greater, but because men are now realising that seeking help is a sign of
strength, not an admission of defeat.
"Statisticians
talk about the cost to business in terms of days off sick, but much more
harmful is the time and energy wasted when people are actually at work.
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"If
you haven’t accepted that the main cause of stress is yourself, you spend
fruitless hours thrashing around for someone else to blame and feeling
resentful. That in turn affects the morale of people working around you."
